This page in a nutshell: The terms "citizenship" and "nationality" are sometimes used interchangeably, but differ in important ways. In most circumstances, citizenship is easier to determine than nationality, and should be given priority. Nationality should be listed only in addition to citizenship, and only in cases where it both differs from citizenship and is relevant to the article.

Note: The following paragraph describes the options that would be available in {{Infobox person}} should this proposal be accepted by the community. Presently, the template provides only a "nationality" field, not both a "nationality" and a "citizenship".

Citizenship and nationality are two options in the {{Infobox person}} template which, though often related, are distinct concepts with different meanings. The purpose of this guideline is to provide editors with clear instructions that explain the differences between nationality and citizenship, why they are sometimes mistakenly used as synonyms, and how to decide whether either is appropriate for use in a given circumstance.

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Citizenship is a legal status in a political institution such as a city or a state. The relationship between a citizen and the institution that confers this status is formal, and in contemporary liberal-democratic models includes both a set of rights that the citizen possesses by virtue of this relationship, and a set of obligations or duties that they owe to that institution and their fellow citizens in return.

Nationality, on the other hand, denotes informal membership in or identification with a particular nation (which is not a synonym for country or state).[1] While nationality is sometimes conferred as a legal status (see below), it and nations are properly understood as social categories, characterised by at least a common language, culture and territory, and sometimes also by a common religious faith and a purportedly shared ancestry.

People (ethnic group) is the plural of persons who have common origin, common and distinctive culture, common myths and symbols, traditions and common laws and customs for members. In other words the people is cultural and biological community.

While the terms "citizenship" and "nationality" are sometimes used interchangeably, this is for political purposes rather than because there is no difference between the two. The most familiar instance of this is the use of "nationality" to denote state citizenship (as in nationality law). This is common practice for many states, under the assumption that because they are supposed to be "nation-states" (meaning that the boundaries of the nation and the state coincide), making a distinction is unnecessary – all citizens are also nationals.

An obvious example of when citizenship and nationality will differ is naturalization through immigration.[4] In this circumstance a person may be required to renounce their previous citizenship(s) (depending on the laws of both the original and receiving states), but this does not imply that they have renounced their previous nationalities as well. For example, an immigrant from Germany to the United States of America may apply for and receive American citizenship, but it is unlikely that she or anyone else would then say that she was no longer "German" in any sense, despite the fact that in most circumstances Germany requires its emigrants to renounce their German citizenship before adopting another.[5]

Multinational states provide another example. While many citizens of Canada and the United Kingdom, for instance, see Canada or the United Kingdom as their respective nations, a significant proportion of them do not (or, at least, this is not their only national identity). Despite their citizenship, many Québécois, Aboriginal peoples, Acadians, English, Scots, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish see those groups as their nations, even if they may also identify with the state or the nation associated with it.[6]

As a legal status, citizenship is easier to determine than nationality in most circumstances and should be given priority when using the {{Infobox person}} template. Nationality should be listed only in addition to citizenship, and only in cases where it is verifiable and relevant to the article. For most articles, this just means using the citizenship field instead of the nationality field, as the citizenship of the article's subject is what editors are usually trying to convey with the latter term.

^The term "international" and organisational names like League of Nations and United Nations are themselves misnomers that perpetuate the ambiguity between state and nation. The correct (if unconventional) term in this case is "interstate"; the analogous name for the United Nations is, of course, already taken. Connor, Ethnonationalism, 40.